Pair of academic casualties cost UO depth at receiver

Depth at receiver has been thinned further for the Oregon football team after the announcement Thursday that talented if mercurial wideouts Tyrece Gaines and Diante Jackson are ineligible for the 2010 season.

Gaines and Jackson will sit out the fall for “failure to maintain the minimum academic standards required by the NCAA,” according to a UO release. The announcement casts doubt on whether either will ever play for the Ducks, with Gaines in particular and perhaps both expected to pursue a transfer.

Earlier this offseason, Oregon’s most veteran reserve receivers, senior Jamere Holland and junior Garrett Embry, were dismissed from the team.

Gaines and Jackson were highly regarded signees in the class of 2009, and both stood out while participating with the scout team last fall. But there had been indications that academics were a concern, when Jackson’s participation in fall camp was delayed while the NCAA Clearinghouse reviewed his high school transcripts, and when Gaines sat out all of spring drills this past April.

UO coach Chip Kelly said the Ducks had already been preparing for 2010 as if Jackson and Gaines wouldn’t be members of the seven-player travel squad at receiver.

“We hadn’t factored them into anything,” UO coach Chip Kelly said.

Each redshirted in 2009, Gaines earning that designation after an appeal to the NCAA because he participated in one play last fall because of what Oregon said was a coach’s error. The NCAA recently granted that appeal, the Ducks announced Thursday.

Thus, Jackson has four years left in which to play four, beginning with the upcoming fall, and Gaines — who joined the team out of junior college — has two years left in which to play two. If they stayed at Oregon and sat out, Jackson would have three years left to play, and Gaines one.

If they elect to transfer, either by dropping to a lower level of football or staying in the FBS and sitting out a season, the loss of Gaines and Jackson while considered ineligible would be a significant blow to Oregon’s Academic Progress Rate when it is calculated next year.

The Ducks will also take a hit on the field this fall at a position already thinned by attrition. Starters Jeff Maehl, D.J. Davis and Lavasier Tuinei all return, but they’re also the only returning wideouts who had a reception in 2009. Click here for the complete story.